The Ku Klux Klan has a long history of being famous for its hate towards African Americans and other ethnic race and religious groups. The Ku Klux Klan was founded in 1866 in In Pulaski, Tennessee by Six young college students. The six young men all former Confederate officers started this as and a social club or fraternity and spent their time draped in white cloths and acted in horseplay of various types, wearing disguises and galloping on horses about town after dark. This is where the Uniform and activities of the group began after realizing that they were putting young former slaves into a state of fear and panic. While roaming around only playing the group took advantage of this fear that they saw and began to form a vigilante group to prevent southern blacks or whites who would participate from enjoying any civil rights movements. The group’s former intent was not to cause harm towards anyone although they targeted the African American race these were not there only causalities. …show more content…
The organization was further broken down into smaller organization which were led by other members of the Klan called Grand Dragons. Former slaves were the obvious target of the group but not the only target that the group would terrorize. They harassed and intimidated northerners and any person or “carpetbagger" who was not welcomed in the southern states. In 1869 the Klan began to fall apart due to the violent nature of the crimes in which they committed. The more prominent citizen of the organizations began to drop out all together and there began internal competition for control. After being disgusted by the outrage and violent acts and the way the organization had gone Nathan Forrest disbanded the organization and the other groups followed in his steps. In 1882, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the Ku Klux Act unconstitutional but the Klan had long before that been faded
The Ku Klux Klan, also known as the KKK, was thriving in its second generation during the 1920s. The Ku Klux Klan was reborn by William J. Simmons, with the intentions of creating a world with only one race. Simmons’ inspiration came from the film, “Birth of a Nation”. The Ku Klux Klan became more hateful and violent than ever, creating a sense of fear among not only African-Americans, but Jews, Catholics, and immigrants too.
The first wave of the Ku Klux Klan organizers ended in the 1870s due to the passage of federal legislation. Many years later, there was a national resurgence, it was the birth of a new nation. The Ku Klux Klan was no longer existence until William J. Simmons. The founder of the second Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s was William J. Simmons.
Motivated by nationalism, The Birth of a Nation, and Mary Phagan’s murder, the Klan was officially reformed by William Joseph Simmons in 1915. Radical patriotism, “public fears, and intolerance” fueled the group’s revival, and it steadily gained members until the late 1920’s (Benson, Brannen, and Valentine, “Ku Klux Klan”). A nostalgia for the old Southern ways also pushed people to reform the Klan. Sentiments felt by the group were common enough that a large amount of people could relate and join, bringing in more money and often more press. The Klan gained a lot of media coverage as it began to protest, which brought more national attention to the group.
- The most notorious organization was the Ku Klux Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was organized in Pulaski Tennessee, in 1866 to intimidate former slaves who voted and apprehended political offices during Reconstruction. The Ku Klux Klan history came all about with the situation in the South following the harsh Civil War. The Southern States were in distraught and the defeated white people were humiliated and felt like they had to get revenge and gain their power back. The goal of the original Ku Klux Klan was to fight against the Reconstruction policies of the radical Republican Congress and to maintain "white supremacy. The Klan was led by merchants, planters, and Democratic politicians. They considered themselves as the most respectable citizens
The Ku Klux Klan was a secret terrorist organization that was created by six well educated Confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee in the December of 1865. Their main objective was to restore white supremacy through acts of violence such as murder, against both Black and White Republicans. The KKK had eventually spread to every southern state, and Klansmen would often terrorize republicans regardless of their race. Members of the KKK believed that African Americans were inferior to Whites and did not believe that Blacks deserved equal rights. Although the rebel groups were outlawed and made illegal, many of them remained in existence and appeared after the reconstruction had ended. This proved the Reconstruction to be ineffective as many Southerners were still fighting against the government and opposed them. In addition, African Americans were still deprived of their rights by these
The KKK was founded in 1866, by 1870 the klan had spread to almost every southern state. The KKK was against any Republican leaders no matter the race, so the KKK could restore white supremacy. In the constitutional conventions the years of 1867 and 1868 , seven African American legislatures were killed by the KKK. Most of the KKK’s attacks were at night time, making people think it was dead confederate soldiers ghosts doing the crimes. On january 1871 the KKK made and attack, five hundred masked klan members attacked a union county jail, that nights eight African American prisoners were lynched.
In the late 1800’s, during the period of Reconstruction, there was fear and hate of African Americans by white southerners. This fear and hate rooted from the fact that African American’s now had the same rights and freedoms as white people. This caused an uproar. Because of this, people were coming together and sharing their feelings and ideas about the newly freed African Americans. This is how the KKK, also known as the Ku Klux Klan, came about. The Ku Klux Klan was began in 1866 by white men in Pulaski, Tennessee. The men that came together to create the Ku Klux Klan were mostly ex-confederate soldiers who were unhappy with the outcome of the Civil War. These men that used intimidation methods and violence. These men covered themselves as well as their horses in white sheets and rode through towns, causing scenes and using horrifying intimidation acts, especially against African Americans.
The Ku Klux Klan flourished in the South at the beginning of the Reconstruction succeeding the Civil War. There remained numerous ex-Confederates that were still strongly opposed to the Reconstruction and sought to preserve white supremacy in the South. Directly after the Civil War the government in the South was weak and vulnerable. The Ku Klux Klan leveraged this and used violence and threats to try to reestablish white supremacy. They were most successful in playing upon fears and superstitions. They not only brought terror to the black communities but they also targeted carpetbaggers and scalawags. They used these threats and fears in effectively keeping the blacks away from the polls so that the ex-Confederates could gain back political control in the
The most famous white supremacy group in American history is the Ku Klux Klan (a.k.a. The KKK) and aimed to “cleanse” the American population of black people and was used to launch attacks on black people and the people that advocated and supported their rights. The group was founded in 1865 in Tennessee by 6 members of the Confederate army and gained an immense amount of followers over the next 80 years. At its peak, the group reached around 6 million members on a global scale, extending the racism and hate worldwide. The activities of the hate-group became extremely violent as they started cross burnings, executions and mass parades to advocate their anti-civil rights movement. Eventually, they also started targeting other minorities in America, such as Jewish people, who have also faced a large struggle for rights and freedoms throughout history. Eventually, the people started to fight back against the KKK and although it still continues today as a group with an extremely small amount of members, numbers were drastically reduced, their hate crimes subsided and the black people of America once again started to regain their rights and
The Ku Klux Klan began on Christmas Eve in 1866, in a town called Pulaski, Tennessee. It began as a fraternity for ex-confederate soldiers to converse over white supremacy and how to bring back white as the superior race. But slowly turned deadly, when they began killing African Americans. The grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan was a former confederate general, Nathan Forrest. After the selection of Forrest as the Grand Wizard people from all different parts of life decided to join the Ku Klux Klan, some of these members were politicians, farmers, and planters. Klan’s began to take over large territories of the south and bring mass destruction to black communities. The Klan became a huge issue in the Southern states and is
“The first incarnation of the KKK formed just after the Civil War, using terrorist violence as a means of maintaining white supremacy, but its influence "waxed and waned," as Gordon puts it, over the decades that followed” (Waxman 2). The Ku Klux Klan, aka KKK, is a white supremacist group who has done many cruel things to African Americans. Throughout many years, the KKK has grown power over politics, the news, and television as ways to try and exterminate African Americans. The KKK is a group that think the white people have the power over the African Americans, and that African Americans should not be treated as fair. Overall, the Ku Klux Klan impacted society through violence, white supremacy, and the nationwide attention the group was
Eight months after the Civil War, in the south the government was weak and there were no jobs available. On Christmas Eve of 1866, six confederate veterans started a social hate group in Pulaski, Tennessee. The six confederate veterans were John Lester, James Crowe, John Kennedy, Calvin Jones, Richard Reed, and Frank McCord. The group started off as just wanting to have fun and keep themselves entertained. The six founders were well educated and came from wealthy families. From their Greek knowledge, they use the word kyklos meaning circle and then added the word Klan. The Ku Klux Klan was then born. Nathan Bedford Forrest was the first leader of the Klan. He was known as the “Grand Wizard.”
In order to achieve their goal of re-establishing white supremacy. Founded in 1866 by former confederate veterans, the Ku Klux Klan would be established as the most powerful terrorist organization of its time. Aimed at dismantling the possible overthrow of white supremacists in the United States by the increasingly powerful African-American community. The KKK would target black southerners and any white persons who would help them. Nathan Bedford Forrest would become the primary leader during this era titled the “Grand Wizard” he would push the organization's agenda throughout the United
Perhaps the most famous terrorist organization in the history of America, the Ku Klux Klan, better known as the “KKK”, was originated in 1866 by a group of six confederate veterans in Pulaski, Tennessee. Although the Klan “had no malicious intentions” according to (Eyewitness to History). As we all know, that fact quickly changed. Throughout the next few years, this group spread to all southern states. It is followers included mayors, judges, police officers, and even convicted felons. This group of people began killing black people, black politicians, and white people who sided with the blacks. They were famous for burning large crosses in the homes and neighborhoods of blacks, and setting fire to churches in which they knew a large amount of blacks attended their masses each
The largest threat to African Americans with after the Civil War and Reconstruction was the Ku Klux Klan. The KKK was founded in 1866, and extended into almost every southern state by 1870. The organization became a vehicle for white southern citizens to deny Republican Party’s Reconstruction-era policies whose ideas, that tried establishing political and economic equality for African Americans. The KKK flourished in some regions in the South where, African Americans were a minority of the population. The KKK also targeted any individual or organization that would support minatory groups. Even at its height, the KKK was not a well-organized organization or had a clear leader. The organization’s members where all types of people ranging